


Stratigraphy

by Han_shot_first



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Archaeology, Brotherhood of Diggers, Dr Arya Stark, F/M, Professor Jaqen, University of Oldtown, University of the Free North, alternative universe, good smelly dried food thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2020-07-19 19:50:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19979566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Han_shot_first/pseuds/Han_shot_first
Summary: Flushed with victory, she had drunkenly reached for his hand at her celebratory drinks in the pub, thinking of lightning all those years ago, feeling like they had travelled back to the Dawn of Days. She was aching to see it crackle across her skin. She wanted to drown in a storm of his making.





	1. Strat B

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Griftings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griftings/gifts).



She’s sitting with her equipment in the ruin of Moat Cailin, Nymeria at her feet, when she looks up to see a couple of undergraduates are trudging past the trenches, and she tries not to suck her teeth at them. Tries not to look too irritated at their slowness and chattering, thinking about how much money they’re costing as they just mope around, when one steps directly on the stones of one of the few remaining courses of the curtain wall, inside of one of the trenches, and she just fucking snaps.

“Don’t step inside the godsdamned trench!” she shouts at him. They’ve all been told to obey this one rule above all others, and she's tried to drill it into their thick skulls every morning as they start work, but she swears they’re all too busy thinking about fucking in their tents or getting drunk in the pub, because it happens at least once a day. This one looks up, completely terrified, and frozen solid where he stands. And his boot is still on the fucking feature. She huffs, and wanders over.

“See that?” she points to the staked out area, where nails have been hammered into the ground, and strings have been pulled taut. 

“Any time you see strings across nails, that’s marking a trench, so don’t step inside of it. Keep outside of it. Got it?” He frowns, eighteen years old, pimply and unsure.

Then she points to a row of black basalt stones hanging together in a line. Right where his fucking boot still hasn’t moved.

“See that?” He's looking at his shoe, not the stones. “Not your boot! The stones you’re stepping on! Move off of them! Look at the flag! See the flag?! Any time you see a flagged feature, don't step near it! Get out of there!” He’s finally moving, and she’s hopping into the trench. The rules are different for her. She's the Director, and she’s looking to see what the damage is. 

“This is archaeology. See a few stones sitting all in a line? It looks suspicious, but it might be nothing. Depending on what's around it, you might want to investigate further. But if you see stones with something sticking them together? That’s _definitely_ not natural. That's _archaeological_.” She points out the crumbling substance between the fragile stones his boot had stood on, and then continues. “We’re in the area of the curtain wall, and we’re trying to find its edges, yeah? That might be part of its edge.” She looks up, and thinks that finally the dim light bulb is starting to glow in his brain.

Only minimally though, she assesses, but decides not to skin him alive for her dog’s dinner.

She tries to get him to envisage the curtain wall that once defended the interior of the stronghold of the ancient First Men, and he starts to stare at her like she’s insane as she points at the nearly invisible lines of stones that have been flagged up in a few other places as she shoots looks back at him. She’s gesturing and pointing at the various areas in the ground where they’ve been surveying and sinking test pits. She’s talking about the ruins all around them. He just can’t picture it all the way she can, and she can see the hazy light in his eyes fade to black as his mind goes wandering off to other things. The scrawny, starving little mouse on the rusted wheel of his imagination has just keeled over and fucking died. Not only does he not seem to realise it, he can't fucking begin to care less. Why is he even here? Must be for a minimal course credit. She trails off as she gives up, knowing it’s a lost cause.

“Right, um… maybe just… go help Jojen and Meera over at the spoil heap. Go help them do some sieving. Might get some small finds, and pick up some things we’ve missed,” she says finally. It’s unlikely to yield very much, but it still needs to be done. She's standing up and brushing her filthy hands against her combat trousers. They’re covered with more stains than just dirt, and her waistcoat and pockets are filled with various bits of flotsam and jetsam, including polybags, the odd hairpin, hair ties, a few nails, a plumb bob and line, some string, and a few precious retractable permanent markers with finds labels taped over them with the words ‘DIE THIEF DIE’ on one side and ‘GENDRY WATERS’ on the other. Her trowel lives in a waistcoat pocket, its handle worn with much use. The rest of her kit lives in her Stanley utility bag, which she’s left by Nymeria.

His face brightens like she’s given him the best task ever, and she tries not to wince at his enthusiasm. She watches as he bumbles away. At least he avoids the other lines of potential features they’ve marked out with flags, and doesn’t step into anyone else’s trench as he scuttles over to the heap. A few shouts and warnings from busy diggers likely stopped him, though. She snorts, shaking her head. The little buns she’s wound and pinned to the sides of her head cast little shadows on the ground.

Not everyone’s born a bucket bitch, she thinks ruefully.

She rubs at her eyes, tired from the late nights pouring over section reports, and looks down at Nymeria, who’s wandered over for a scratch and a rub at her ears. ‘Good dig dog,’ she thinks fondly.

“A girl has become a teacher,” says a voice behind her, and she almost jumps back onto the feature of the fragile curtain wall. 

“Fuck!” she cries out, flailing forward to spin a bit, only to land on the toes of her steelies, balancing like a cat before coming back on her heels. She only just misses falling on her face. 

She looks up in shock. Keeps looking up until she meets the honey brown eyes of a tall man with shoulder-length red hair mixed with a patch of white ( _poliosis_ , her brother’s dermatologist wife Jeyne told her, when she asked her oh so innocently a few years ago what it was called when she had patches of white hair, like one of those big patches of pure white hair she’d seen on a dark-haired baby? She had felt a little guilty as Jeyne had patiently explain that oh no, that was _poliosis_ , not at all like the ageing process, oh sweetheart, it was perfectly natural for some women to stop producing melanin at a young age, and it doesn’t you any less attractive, and she didn’t need to dye her hair if she didn’t want to, and gods then she had heard Robb howling with incredulous laughter, and she had quickly thanked Jeyne and hung up before she had fully absorbed how that laughter actually hurt a bit, because she actually did have some grey hair, and even a few strands of white, for all that she was only twenty-five, and she had found she actually really liked them, because the effect shimmered in her dark brown hair, and made her think of Nymeria, and the pelts of the direwolves of old). 

He has snuck up behind her like a cat. He smirks like one too, as always, and that makes her want to snarl back like a wolf, as ever. 

“You….you asshole! How long were you watching?” she demands. It’s the first words she’s said to him in over two years, and it’s not what she expected to say, what she’d sometimes play-acted in her head, late at night when she couldn’t bear to think of how they parted, but there it is. Too late to take it back, and then she decides the words are just fine. Perfect. She really, really doesn’t like being watched. Especially not by this man. It’s way too much like being judged, and she’s done with that. Especially by this man.

She can’t stop him from looking at her though. And boy, does he ever take his time, the total bastard. His eyes are on her body, moving so slowly, taking in her dusty navy shirt and waistcoat with its many pockets, her dirty grey combat trousers, and her steel-toed safety boots. She feels dirty and small, which is ridiculous, because he's an archaeologist too, and knows how it goes. He smirks at the little swirls of hair on the sides of her head, and she glares. She likes her little buns. She can stuff or pull out pens and pencils and nails from them when she’s trowelling, and not pause to dig around in her pockets. She wonders suddenly if her hair looks like a bird’s nest, but rules her face. She will not check, she will not check, she will not check. Damn him!

Then he makes that move with his shoulders, somehow combining nonchalance and an elegant elongation of his broad shoulders and sleek limbs, simultaneously taking in the busy dig around him. He’s like a big damned cat, and she wants to scratch him and bite him to see what will happen. 

“A lovely girl commands her army,” he says as he walks. “A man comes to observe.” 

She cannot discern if what he sees meets with his approval. She also can’t decide if she wants his approval. She carefully moves herself out of the trench, and walks towards her kit bag. He comes with her, but his response is so entirely without a care in the world that she can have only two choices: to respond with anger, or pretend she doesn’t care either. Is there a third way? Yes: sarcasm. A fourth? Of course: wit. A fifth? 

This is how it has always been with him. He has always pressed her to open her mind to all the possibilities. To stretch, to expand, and to explore within herself the maze of options that lives like a ever-twisting, ever-turning labyrinth within her mind. And so, reflexively, in his presence, she feels herself doing so again now. And she finds she makes a decision on a fifth way.

“I am always learning,” she says, surprising him with total and complete honesty. She looks back at him, and sees how her response brings his eyes back to her face, from where it had been elsewhere. He is assessing her. He inclines his head, accepting her response. From one teacher to another. That’s completely new, and she suppresses a shiver.

He looks at her feet, acknowledges Nymeria, but does not touch her. She has snuck up slightly closer, but also pretends to ignore him. Her performance lacks conviction. He wormed her way into her heart years ago in the slyest of ways: with food, attention, unfailing gentleness, and alarming aloofness. The more he ignored her, the more she wanted to know what he had in his pockets: what was the _good smelly dried food thing_?

Answer: lots and lots of dried venison. Sometimes. Not always. But often enough. Now? Maybe.

Nymeria is angry that the Red and White Man has been gone for a long, long time. She is angry that he forgot her, and stopped bringing her the _good smelly dried food thing_ , the thing that the Girl does not give her nearly often enough. 

Nymeria loved the _good smelly dried food thing_ , but she also loved how happy the Girl was when she was with the Red and White Man. The Girl had smelled more like a wild, happy wolf when she came back from time with the Red and White Man. Ripe and full, ready to mate, like she had finally chosen her mate, and Nymeria had rejoiced. Had been overjoyed with the Girl to accept him, because the Red and White Man had shown himself to be strong and wise, capable of giving them both good food and happiness. The Girl had been offered many potential mates, but none were like the Red and White Man. None made the Girl groom and fuss over her fur or fur coverings the same way. None made the Girl fret over food offerings or hunting patterns when they went to the city to eat in the place where the Fat Boy made delicious food that the Girl called _hot pies_. Nymeria salivates at the thought of a _hot pie_ but is still confused that the Fat Boy is also a _hot pie_ but not one she was allowed eat. The Red and White Man would slip chunks of _hot pie_ to her when the Girl was not watching, and she would lick his Man paws until all of it was gone. He was delicious, and Nymeria had nibbled gently on him, enjoying the salt of him, knowing that he was a strong mate for the Girl.

And then he had disappeared, and the Girl had wept for what felt like eternity. There was no more _good smelly dried food thing_. The taste of _hot pie_ was not as satisfying. And the Girl had curled into a ball like a lost puppy, forlorn and alone, howling in on herself as though her very soul had been rent into two. 

Nymeria snarls. The Red and White Man does not move closer. She lets him know that he is not forgiven. The Girl had wept and called out for her mate, had begged in her sleep for him not to go, but he had, and so he is not forgiven. She had held on to Nymeria’s neck, had cried into it, and had howled. No, he is not forgiven.

She moves carefully to keep her nose away from the smell of the Red and White Man and his pocket as the two make their Man Talk, but the treacherous wind shifts and brings the scent of the _good smelly dried food thing_. The many generations of direwolf in her tell her that the Red and White Man has definitely brought her some as a gift. Her ears prick up.

Oh, but he’s so difficult! He won’t just give it to her. She has to come to him, and let him decide to give it to her. He never asks her to do anything for it, to do what the Girl calls _training_ , but everything is still on his terms. He always demands her patience, like a true alpha dog or wolf. Nymeria huffs, trying to ignore the call of the _good smelly dried food thing_.

But the pocket…the pocket! She salivates at the thought of the pocket. 

She is not allowed to tear it apart to see what is inside and take it for herself. She tried that once, and the Red and White Man ate the _good smelly dried food thing_ all by himself, and did not give her even a single tiny bite. It chastised her, being treated like a naughty pup, but she had accepted it. Somewhere in her bones she had known that since he had brought it, the _good smelly dried food thing_ was his kill to share as his right. 

But he had made the Girl cry….he had abandoned his mate. 

She growls very slightly, and the Girl looks at her curiously. “Nymeria?” she says, rubbing the base of her ears very gently, but she shakes her great head. She’s not angry at the Girl. She’s annoyed at herself, for she wants to hunt, to tear out the _good smelly dried food thing_ out of the pocket for herself. She wants to kill the Red and White Man’s control. She wants to stalk the prey, bite and hold onto the haunches, bring it down, rip out the throat, find the organs, the heart and the liver, and then feast, feast, feast! It would be so much better than the _good smelly dried food thing_ , she knows it in her bones…. 

She’s panting hard now. The Girl looks at her, then takes out her collapsible water bowl, pours in some water, and sets it down for her. She drinks greedily.

The Girl and the Red and White Man are discussing things about stone and river, rock and soil. She remembers how they talked all the time, and does not understand why they stopped. The heat between them is still there. Why do they not mate? She thinks the noises indicates readiness. She examines how they sway in the air between them. Not too close, not too far away. The Red and White Man sometimes inclines his head, sometimes tosses it back or tilts. See? That’s a bow! He wants you, Girl! Nymeria chuffs, and then tilts her head in surprise as the Girl does not nuzzle his mouth in return. She watches as the Girl sticks her tongue out at him. She snorts. The Red and White Man should be tasting her scent in the air, not the other way around. Or tucking his face into her crotch, to see that she is ready. These two are completely hopeless.

She doesn’t understand Man. Heat still rises between the Girl’s legs, every month, and the Girl sometimes offers herself to the Bull Boy, but she never seems to be happy afterwards. And no pups have ever come from the matings. Maybe the Bull Boy does not knot her. Maybe the Red and White Man would. He would do it right, she thinks. Tie her properly, and then Man pups would come.

Maybe then the Girl would be happy? Nymeria doesn’t know anything about pups, and she’s never seen the Girl with Man pups, but she knows that the Girl misses the Red and White Man, and maybe she would like his Man pups. And she knows the Bull Boy does not tie to her, because he leaves almost immediately after they mate. And then the Girl always washes in the hateful _bath_ place, the dreaded walled off water place that Nymeria hates more than anywhere else in the house, so she knows that the Bull Boy must not be the Girl’s mate, for why would she do something so hateful if she enjoyed mating with him? Would she not want the scent of her mate all over her? Nymeria doesn't know much about mating, but she thinks she would want the scent of her mate everywhere rather than take a hateful _bath_.

Nymeria considers all of these things as she smells the _good smelly dried food thing_ in the wind again. She _whines_ ever so quietly. The Red and White Man hears, but pretends he does not. The Girl hears, and sighs. It is unseemly, Nymeria knows it, and she also knows that the Girl has given her the _good smelly dried food thing_ sometimes, but it is not the same. Not the same at all. The White and Red Man has something else that makes it taste better? His Man paws again, maybe? She really likes licking them too. When he shares his kill, he lets her lick them as much as she wants, and she likes that so, so much. He really is delicious. 

She has never licked the Bull Boy. He tosses her scraps sometimes, but she has never taken anything directly from him. He smells of hot metal. Her ears go flat at the thought. She does not want to lick him. 

She moves forward at last, deciding that the Red and White Man has been punished enough for now for leaving her. She has not yet even begun to punish him for abandoning his mate. She will consider further how to exact retribution. For now, her eyes become big as a pup's as she moves up to him, and she lets them grow pitiful as she looks up at him, but he does not look at her. 

Foolish Man. She is clever, she is beautiful, and she can smell the _good smelly dried food thing_! 

She huffs and pushes her great head under his hand, which he has not moved an inch towards her body. She nuzzles gently, although she is still angry, and there is wildness in her blood. She wants to take and take, but she is the cleverest girl in the whole wide world, so now she’s going to burrow surreptitiously at his pocket, just to check that all of this pup behaviour is worth it, but the Red and White Man moves away so she cannot. 

The Girl sees a hint of his smile, and that’s enough of that.

“Nymeria, to me,” the Girl says, sharply. Nymeria turns her head away, pretending she does not hear. “To me,” the Girl repeats, irritated. Nymeria has developed selective deafness. The Red and White Man reaches into the pocket and gives her the _good smelly dried food thing_ , and she devours it all. She licks his Man paw, just once, and then obediently returns to the Girl. She turns back to look at him, and his eyebrow lifts. Then Nymeria leans hard against the Girl, turns in a circle, and lays down at her feet. Her back is to him. 

Message received. 

Nymeria is no traitor, and he is not forgiven.

“Why are you here, Professor?” 

His face is unreadable. She learned long ago never to try to play cards with him. Once, very early in her studies with him, she dared him to play strip poker with her friends, just a crowd of other doctoral students from the University of Oldtown, and his features had suddenly become wild and fierce with a hunger that had lit his eyes like lightning across the dark Northern sky. She’d seen it, the gods knew that she had. And then those eyes had been shuttered as fast as Nan closing the windows and exclaiming, “Oh child, you’ll catch your death of cold!” He had graciously but firmly declined. 

“Does a man need a reason to visit a lovely girl on her dig?” 

“Of course not,” she says tightly. Her viva, triumphantly completed, had signalled the end of their relationship as Supervisor and PhD student. Flushed with victory, she had drunkenly reached for his hand at her celebratory drinks in the pub, thinking of lightning all those years ago, feeling like they had travelled back to the Dawn of Days. 

She was aching to see it crackle across her skin. She wanted to drown in a storm of his making, and so she pulled gently at his hand, not knowing how to tug him across to her. Not knowing what she was doing, only knowing that there was a pull in him, and it corresponded somewhere to a pull in her. There was a fire somewhere in her belly, somewhere lower, and in the shadow of the pub, where he held a drink and she held hers, she was sure no one could see her pale hand find his light brown one. No one could see her as she traced her thumb against the underside of his palm. She had bit her lip, staring into his golden brown eyes, and felt her entire body tremble as though being struck by lightning. A full body shiver that had nothing to do with the cold or the alcohol coursing through her veins. 

And his visage had become entirely motionless. The emotion had drained until he was a blank slate. His long, elegantly tapered fingers had pulled away. His warm, brown eyes with their hints of gold, not unlike the heady whisky she had chased down with Gendry and Jon, looked as hard as brass tacks. She had stared into those golden brown eyes and had flushed bright red, and felt in that moment every single year of time that separated them. 

She had recalled in that instant every piece of significant writing he had ever published, his breakthrough studies on dragons and Old Valyria, the possible connections with the First Men, and every research milestone that set him apart from her and the rest of the newest crop of baby academics. His professor’s chair sat like a throne so high above her, and she was just…her. She had never felt so cowed.

Her brain was rapidly sobering, and she felt herself screaming inside. ‘Have I really read all those late night study sessions with him so wrong? All those evenings discussing the First Men and the Children of the Forest, pouring over the earliest academic musings about them? And what about those days when we talked about his beloved Old Valyria, and he started teaching me how to read and speak Valyrian? How those words fell from his tongue, and I wanted him so badly I would have punched my knuckles through a brick wall if it meant getting to his mouth?’ 

He had been so patient as she butchered the accent, like a new born foal learning to walk. The side of his mouth lifted up in that sexy glint of a smile as she had growled in impatience at herself. She had lived for the moments when she finally released a sentence at him and heard it pour off her tongue like syrup. A raw pleasure would dawn in his face, his eyebrows would lift, and something, she swore to the Mother, something would spark. It was beautiful enough to rival the harvest moon on a clear night, and he would say, “Again, lovely girl. Again.” And she would grin, elated with her victory, and she would do it again. For him. She would hold it all in her heart, commit the cadence to her memory, and do it again, for him.

He stared hard at her, then looked away, into the crowd of academics laughing and drinking around them. She took in his handsome best friend, an expert in ancient weaponry, who was telling a dirty joke to the tiny female professor, who was a palynologist and expert in ancient poisons, psychotropics, perfumes, and dyes. She switched over to a lively discussion between the Head and the Reader of the department, the benevolent kindness in the face of the former contrasting harshly against the severe sternness of the latter. A dozen of her doctoral candidate friends were laughing and joking in the nooks and tables nearby, and she was so grateful they all seemed unaware of what was happening between her and her professor. She looked back at him, and found her professor’s gaze upon her, hot and piercing. He had apparently been looking at her for a while as she scanned the crowd.

‘Do you understand what you could have just done to me, to yourself?’ she thought his honeyed brown eyes were saying to her, as he bored his gaze into her. Utter shame defeated her. He could lose his job, his entire career, with the merest hint of impropriety. The validity of her thesis could be put into question with just a whisper of sexual interaction between them. It might be four long years of research for her, but it was over twenty-five years for him. And it would all be gone in an instant. For her. A second daughter of an old House from the North that no one in the South gave two shits about. Tears gathered in her eyes. How could she be so stupid? So selfish?

She turned to flee, a tear falling despite her attempt to rule her face, but suddenly his hand had shot out, grabbing the back of her neck in a forceful gesture that took her breath away. She straightened and stiffened, meeting his gaze. The look of intensity on his eyes she could never forget. And…was he staring at her lips? A bead of moisture had gathered above his upper lip, surely just a remnant of his ale. Heat flooded her body, despite the terror and shame still coursing through her body. She was confused, and her dark brows knitted together as she watched as he licked his mouth, then hardened his gaze again.

“A lovely girl has more liquid courage than sense,” he murmured, as he looked into her eyes, then back to her lips. 

“Jaqen, I…I’m so sorry,” she stammered. He held her neck tight for a moment more, squeezing it, and she felt herself become unbelievably wet. Flooded with sensation. Her nipples tightened. She squirmed a little. His grip hardened, just for a millisecond. It hurt. _It felt divine._

Then he abruptly released her, and then he was leaving. She stood stunned. Had he really touched her? Or was it just a fever dream? She stood shaking, unable to move as she watched him empty his glass, leave it on the table, pick up his grey peacoat, his satchel, and march out the door of the raucous pub.

“A man is a Professor, lovely girl,” he called over his shoulder. He hadn’t been ‘Professor’ to her for almost four years. 

“What?” was all she could say to the door as it swung shut. To the empty pint glass on the table. She was shaking too hard to do anything else.

His lightning had burned her to cinders. 

The humiliation had been beyond measure. Her heart was shredded, and the triumph of passing her viva, the culmination of four long years of struggling, was so much ashes in her mouth. 

She had never hated a man more in that moment, or herself, for ruining such a victory in such a stupid manner. 

After the night of the viva, when she had crawled out of her horror at herself and pulled out her head out of her ass long enough to feel something other than abject despair and humiliation, she had realised that time was running out for the post-doctoral application cycle. Reluctantly, but knowing she had no real choice, she had emailed to request for him to please fill out a reference section of an application, and had received an automatic out-of-office reply stating he was on sabbatical for the rest of next twelve months and would be unable to receive correspondence at this time, and should an urgent response be required, to please contact the department secretary. 

She had sat stunned for a full ten minutes, unable to comprehend the gaping hole in her heart that his unexpected departure had left in her. He had left, without a word or explanation. The message didn't even say _where_ he had gone.

She had never lost a best friend before. And she had never had her heart broken either. So much _education_ her professor had given her, she had thought in a daze, as tears had filled her eyes, the screen blurred, and a moan of pure pain had escaped her lips.

She had resorted to his handsome best friend, asking him politely for a reference. She'd had many drinks in the pub with him and her professor, and had laughed at many of his most ribald jokes. His response had been strangely courteous and gentle, and he'd even asked if she was feeling well. She'd replied in a hollow tone, "Of course, Professor." And he'd looked smiled so sweetly and sadly at her for a moment that she'd fled before she could burst into tears. When the congratulatory letter arrived announcing she had been accepted for a post-doctoral position at the University of the Free North, she'd been so fucking grateful that she'd get to run away from the South and all its memories of her professor that she'd begun packing her belongings that very afternoon, determined to get started immediately.

She kept tabs on the her old department, and saw when it announced in glowing terms the following year that her former supervisor had received a major research grant to investigate an area around the Dothraki sea where the First Men were said to have originated. He would be on research for yet another year, far away from Westeros. She had felt the blow to the heart like a fist to the gut. She worked hard, grinding through research applications and publishing as though her life depended on it (it did: _publish or perish_ was no joke). Trickles of grants came through, then a large one finally broke through to fund a major investigation at the fortress of Moat Cailin. She knew she was one of a scant lucky handful in Westeros to receive such a bounty. By then she'd taken every single step she could think to forget her former professor and get on with her life. She'd slept her way through a not unimpressive number of one night stands, and then woken up to find she had landed herself in some kind of on again, off again relationship with Gendry, who'd joined the Brotherhood of Diggers, a professional archaeological unit in the North.

"What was it you said last night?" Gendry had said one morning, as she had woken up from drinking way too much whisky in the pub again with the Brotherhood the night before. A used condom wrapper was stuck to her thigh. Ugh. He was sporting a massive morning woody and was rubbing it gently against her ass, and she wasn't really in the mood, but he was doing his best to convince her otherwise. She could still smell the whisky on his breath, and knew hers wasn't much better. Why had this seemed like a good idea, again? She really couldn't remember. Then he'd reached over to palm a nipple, pulled at it gently, and then took her ear into his mouth, lipping and then sucking at her sensitive lobe. Mmhm, she'd thought, her eyes slipping closed as she enjoyed the sensations. He was good with his hands... his lips... but she didn't want to get up to brush her teeth. Maybe if they didn't kiss...

"Valyrian is so weird," he continued. Her eyes popped open. "What? What did you say?" she replied, instantly wary.

"I said, Valyrian is so weird. You were muttering it on and off all night. It sounded like you were licking honey," he said with a chuckle as he ran his tongue up her neck. "That professor of yours must've really drilled that stuff into you."

After that, she didn't sleep in Gendry's bed if she could avoid it, but he didn't seem to mind. From all accounts, he had other beds he visited, and so was content that she liked to sleep in hers. And so what? Not every couple needed to be so close to each other. It didn't mean anything. And if she mumbled in Valyrian in her sleep, so what? It meant nothing at all.

‘Damn him anyway to the Dothraki sea,’ she had thought furiously every time she remembered the night of her viva, and she had taken her mattock rather viciously to a particularly difficult area of her trench. And resolved yet again to not think of him.

And now here he is, making her jump out of her skin and almost step on the bones of walls that were thousands upon thousands of years old, teasing poor Nymeria with the possibility of dried venison, and calling her _lovely girl_.

Which she has not missed. Not at all.

She stands before him, the conversation drying up, and she feels oddly naked, covered in dig dust and sweat, and buried under more than a few stratum of shame, regret, and anger. “So, I’m busy. Gendry’s my site manager. He’ll be happy to answer any more questions you may have about the dig. See you around, Professor.”

And with her dog following, she swiftly but calmly begins the walk towards her Jeep, avoiding trenches and features like a dancer in a complicated piece of choreography, nodding at her minions, answering a few questions, and putting off others for tomorrow. Then she's jumping here and there where needed, onto wooden planks as effortlessly and easily as an acrobat. She waves off everyone, then buckles Nymeria into her seat restraint with trembling fingers. She looks at how her nails are embedded with dirt. Nymeria licks her hands, but it brings her little comfort. She feels like he has seen all of her. 

“I am not a coward,” she tells her dog. She looks into Nymeria's eyes, lays her forehead against her beautiful great head, and breathes for a moment. She feels strength pass from Nymeria to her, and is intensely grateful. Then Nymeria licks her mouth, and she laughs and pushes her away. "Horrible dig dog," she says, but she pulls out one of her favourite treats from one of her pockets: dried venison. Nymeria squirms with joy, and wolfs it down in a single bite.

Then she drives to her hotel. She swears she can feel his half-lidded, golden eyes tracking her all the way.


	2. B2 (Cut)

He watches her snarl at a hapless boy and then effortlessly take him under her tutelage. He is shamelessly voyeuristic as he savours her voice, drinking in her small form, laughing gently under his breath as he sees Nymeria trot after her. She has not changed, and yet she has transformed, exactly as he had foreseen that she could, if given the right training. 

He had wanted to be that trainer, and had sparred with his colleagues for the honour. 

“What’s your interest in her topic?” the Head of the department had asked, his kind eyes sharp, missing absolutely nothing. The girl had achieved a first as an undergraduate and a starred first as a master’s student, a singular rarity, and everyone at the table had an interest in training her. She was a rising star; they could all feel it. She was interested in the First Men, but could be bent to their topics as a reed in the wind. 

“Connections between the First Men and Old Valyria,” he offered as a first response, his body full of insolent nonchalance and arrogant carelessness.

“We all share that interest,” the Head said, but not dismissively. It was an ongoing research topic for the whole department. He shook his head slightly, giving him one more chance. There would not be another.

He had reconsidered his response carefully, and then had ruled his face into stoicism. In his mind’s eye, he had walked around her, holding her image in his gaze. She was beautiful and young, so very young, nearly half his age. Her dark brown hair, almost black, shone in the light of the spotlight he put upon her. Her thick eyebrows danced with joy or knitted in concentration over fiercely intelligent grey eyes, and her long face hid nothing, so unlike his own. Her petite frame was muscular in its athleticism; she was a good digger. Her healthy vibrancy shimmered like a string plucked by a musician, and her spirit shone like the winter sun on her native Northern mountains. But this did not really set her apart. What was it that drew him to her, made him want to become her supervisor above all the others?

“A girl is persistent and wilful,” he had began. “For a master’s dissertation, a girl researched the Old Tongue and the runic system using rubbings taken from the Stark heart tree. This alone may have produced a passing mark. But a girl was not satisfied. A girl also submitted a drawing of a set of previously unknown runes as seen carved in a Free Northerner’s necklace, consisting of unidentified animal tusks and human teeth. And a girl produced speech heard in the Old Tongue as audio recordings. When a girl was asked where the information was found, a girl replied that her brother, a ranger of the Night’s Watch, was convinced to let her spend a moon with the Free Folk, who live in the icy lands beyond the Wall. A girl did this as an ethnographic exercise in the hopes of hearing and seeing the Old Tongue. A girl is persistent and wilful, and a girl found a Lord of Bones.”

He had paused, and taken a careful breath. The room had been pregnant with silence, waiting for his next words.

“No one in this department has been beyond the Wall and lived with the Free Folk, save for a girl and this man. No one has heard the Old Tongue spoken _and_ written in such a way beyond the Wall, save for a girl and this man.” He had looked them each in the eye, one by one, and settling on the kindly Head of the department, he had finished his argument.

“A girl is this man’s student.”

And the matter had been settled. They hadn't bothered to take a vote. 

In meeting the girl, he had felt curiosity, a familiar seed that grew in all archaeologists. But what he had never expected, what he had been wholly unprepared for, was the seed that she planted in him. 

Lurking in the shadows of the walls of Moat Cailin, twelve thousand years of history surrounding him, with two continents and just over twenty eight months of time stretching between them, he is wholly unprepared again, struck dumb by the sum of parts that make up the whole of her. He cannot take it all in at once. He has to hang back, humbled by the knowledge that he could never have been her teacher, not entirely. She was always going to outgrow him. He had struggled to keep up, to keep her from outpacing him almost from the start. 

“Professor, you know how Barrow Hall is on top of the Great Barrow?” she had asked one sunny afternoon in one of the gardens outside of Oldtown University’s main library. She had had that look in her eyes, the one that he had grown to love and beware. “Think we might ever get House Dustin to let us dig it up?”

He had snorted and replied, “A girl knows that is unlikely in the extreme.” 

She had grinned and said, “Yes, but what about some test pits? Just a few, here and there?”

He had looked at her more fully, gauging her sincerity, then said, “To what end? A girl knows the construction of the hall will have greatly disturbed the barrow below, and anything of the First King, if the man lay sleeping below, will have been looted or destroyed.”

“Ah, but what about other burials?” she had said, bouncing on her toes. Hopeful animation filled her face, and not a small amount of mischief. “Later insertions into early barrows are attested in the barrowlands and the marshlands.” She continued to lecture him as though he was unaware of such practices, but he realised her logic and leapt forward to her conclusion before she’d voiced it. Still, he let her show her hand, patiently her teacher, allowing her moment to shine. “So if we just get them to let us dig up some of their gardens, we’d probably find some of the ditch and bank material of the original barrow, and if we’re really lucky, maybe even a later cist!”

He looked at her and smirked. “A lovely girl wants to dig up the ornamental garden of a major House to satisfy her curiosity?”

She looked surprised at his affectation. He had never called her as such, but she wasn’t complaining, and she was truly lovely in her scheming. He smirked as she flustered, but waited as she rallied. She rarely faltered for more than a moment. 

“They’re sworn to my family. I’ll make a call.”

It was his turn to look surprised. He had not known the connection, nor her willingness to use it for her own ends.

And she had, and although it had taken getting her mother involved to call in a few long-standing favours with Lady Barbrey, she had eventually been allowed a non-invasive geophysical survey. 

“Lady Barbrey says in no uncertain terms that we will never get permission to dig up her rose garden,” she had said with a grumble. 

He had laughed, and gathered their equipment and a few undergraduates for the short survey, which had indicated the line of an ancient ditch and the possibility of undiscovered, ploughed-out barrows. Just as she had predicted. She had published her report with his name as a second author in a peer-reviewed journal with high impact, and together they celebrated in the pub, where for the first time she drank with his best friend, whom she laughingly dubbed Professor Handsome after he cracked his joke involving a prostitute, a cat, and an ancient Faceless Man. Dornish alternative rock music had played loudly over the speaker system, and laughter and conversations had drifted around them in the booths and tables nearby. The smells of fried fish and chips, hot pies and mash, and sour ales had wafted in around them. They had shared a plate of chips and onion rings, their fingers covered in salt, and were on their second round of pints.

“So the Faceless Men were actually real?” she’d asked him, slightly breathless after recovering from her giggles. The happy little buzz of alcohol left a flush to her pale Northern skin that was most becoming he’d thought, as his friend shrugged in response to her question. He was back from his season of digging at the ruins of the House of Black and White in Braavos, and the deep tan of his skin set off the dark curls of his hair in a classic Braavosi style. He flirted shamelessly with the bar staff, male and female alike, and was renowned for walking the razor edge of flirtatious behaviour with staff and postgraduate students, without actually flirting _with_ them. A dangerous habit.

“Undoubtedly,” he’d responded with a devilish smile. “However, it’s unlikely they actually used the faces they cut from the dead in the ways they recorded in the temple scrolls we’ve uncovered. Shame we've never found any of the masks, but with them being organic, they likely wouldn’t have survived. Even if the curing process their scrolls describe is accurate.”

She was completely fascinated. He loved watching her face, so open and trusting. He had learned from a young age to keep his emotions hidden, lest they be used against him at a most inopportune moment. Most adults in his acquaintance did the same to a degree, wearing masks of their emotions to cover their true intentions, their true ideas. His interest in the Faceless Men ethos had never been entirely shallow. 

His student’s emotions were written all over her face. Looking at her, watching her grey eyes fog with concentration as she rifled through the information she kept in her mind, knowing she was coming up with more questions to drill his colleague, he had realised that he had come to a decision. He hadn’t known it had been building, nor had he felt it simmering, but as she peppered his colleague with ceaseless questions, and her face took on delight and determination, everything had seemed suddenly so natural to him, just like breathing. He kept his face as placid as a lake, as nonchalant and idle as a summer day, but had felt his heart beating so hard, so rapidly, that he had felt as though he had been running for his life, a wolf nipping at his heels.

He had reached into his pocket, and without fanfare, taken her hand, and placed into it a very old, very rare iron coin. He had not elaborated how many years ago, he had used his connections in the black market antiquities underground to track down a dealer in Lys. He had heard whispers of the coin, and he had simply known that he needed it. He just hadn't known why, not until that moment.

“What’s this?” she had said, turning it over in her hand. Then her eyes flown open wide, staring at her professor. “Where did you get this?”

“Braavos,” he had lied, with a careless toss of his red and white hair. “There are a few that end up in the bazaars, or with second-hand traders and coin dealers. No provenance, alas. It is not precious, lovely girl.”

She had stared at him in shocked disbelief, then peering closely at his impassive face, after a moment, seemed satisfied. She had turned her curiously grey eyes back to the worn coin. On the obverse was the image of a hooded face. She had flipped it to the reverse to reveal the jagged ‘V’ sliced into the centre, along with faint writing along the edge. He had studiously avoided looking at his handsome friend, who had graciously taken the hint, and had abruptly stood up to get them all another round. Entranced by her little coin, she had nodded absently, asking for another pint of ale, and he had indicated the same.

In the quiet moment that was seared into his memory, it had just been the two of them seated alongside each other in the oak booth in the back of the pub, the candles on the walls and single tea-light candle on the table enhancing the intimacy. The music and chatter around them had seemed to fade, and his heart had pulsed a rhythm as he had leaned over slightly to watch her tracing the writing with her fingertip.

“Valar morghulis,” he had murmured into the shell of her ear. He had watched in fascination as the fine wisps of hair on the nape of her neck had faintly rustled in response to his breath. He had enjoyed the response, and had wanted to know what else had responded in her, and what more he could stir. 

_No you do not_ , he had sharply reminded himself.

But then she had turned her face to look into his eyes, and their faces were suddenly very close. They had been working together for a while now, but never this physically close. This close, he could see the fine sun-lines that were gathering ever so faintly in the corners of her eyes and on her forehead. This close, he could take in the full measure of her mouth as he dropped his gaze down to it.

“What?” she had whispered. So sweet. The temptation to taste her was suddenly so strong that for a moment his breath had caught in his throat. He had gripped himself in his mind very tightly, ruling his body in an iron cage, reminding himself that she was his student, and he was her professor. 

“Valar morghulis,” he had repeated quietly. “Say it, lovely girl.”

“Valar morghulis,” she had dutifully responded, his beautiful model student. His groin had tightened so exquisitely painfully that he didn’t know if he wanted her to continue to obey him, or end the madness now.

“’All men must die,’” he had translated, leaning over her again, whispering into her ear to be heard over the noise of the crowd and the music. “Now repeat, ‘Valar dohaeris.’” He moved back and dropped his eyes to her mouth again, wanting to see the words as they left her lips. She licked them, and he suppressed a shudder at seeing her pink tongue dart out, grazing her lips. Tried not to think of what they would look like wrapped around his---

“Valar dohaeris,” she said. Now she was staring at his lips, and her pupils had dilated into large black holes with minimal rings of silver. She licked again, and the glimmer of the soft candle lights all around them rendered her pink flesh into an shining, erotic display. His cock had twitched once, hard, despite all his efforts to ignore it.

“’All men must serve,’” he had whispered, lifting his eyes to meet hers. His traitorous mind had wondered what service he could do to her. 

“Professor,” she had whispered back to him, hardly knowing what to say.

“Jaqen,” he had murmured. “This man has the honour of being Jaqen H’ghar.”

“Jaqen,” her voice had said, and it was a benediction.

In the years that followed, he had speculated how much the thought of serving her had shone in his eyes, because in hers, he had seen something ageless reflected back to him. Something in those moon-coloured eyes, something that looked like a wolf prowling in the undergrowth of a dark forest of dreams. His heart had instinctively begun to pound a rhythm of fear and delight. There was something in her that was huge and unknowable, wild and untameable, and it held no fear of him or for consequences. It had cut through him like a river swollen with rain, flooded and tearing through a valley. It had ripped through all of his defences and weaknesses, and he had stood powerless and naked in the undertow. 

The wolf girl had held taken his gaze, had been an equal partner in the moment. She was no object to his gaze. She had flipped the table, and the current of her river had swept through him, washing him clean, taking his breath away, and pinning him back in her power. The wolf girl had him in her jaws. He could not look away. He did not want to ever look away. But he had wanted some of his power back. He had moved forward, ever so slightly. 

“Two ales,” said his colleague, saving them both from ruining their careers, and taking the silver river and the wolf away. 

He had nearly snarled at his best friend, hating him and grateful to him all at once, the massive cockblocker. The handsome man was full of insouciance and had merely smiled, his gaze infuriatingly knowing. 

A worthless Braavosi coin indeed.

 _Fool_. She was just a girl, lovely indeed, but just a student, one of hundreds to come and go every year, and he was no poacher of innocent children. And it was as near to a sacred undertaking as it could be found in the university, being a supervisor to a doctoral student, for there was no guarantee that her research would succeed, and so he would not, could not falter in his task to see her through to her goal.

 _Then why did a professor give a student a priceless coin? Does a man seek to buy a lovely girl?_ His inner voice taunted him, and he was suddenly disgusted with himself. But the memory of the river of silver would haunt him in his dreams both mundane and shamefully erotic, and in the years that followed, he would sometimes push her very hard, intentionally provoking her, trying to see it again. He could not rightfully say if he was torturing himself, her, or the both of them. 

When she came back from a winter break with Nymeria, a beast of a dog who looked more like a wolf than any he'd ever seen, he knew the gods laughed at him, and he was doomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> B2 is just a cut into stratum B, and it needs a fill, which means B3 (fill). 
> 
> So technically, archaeologically speaking, this isn't a chapter, because we're still in the same stratum.
> 
> TL/DR: two more chapters at least.


	3. B3 (fill)

She showered and then sat on the edge of the bath, taking her time to shave. She let herself feel the edge of her razor against her underarms and her legs. She carefully trimmed her pubic hair into a short, neat line, then cleaned herself and the razor carefully. She inspected it for damage, then put it away in its well-worn leather case, embossed with a direwolf and the letters _AS_. 

The straight-edge blade had been a gift from her mother on her thirteenth birthday and was inlaid with mother of pearl. Catelyn had quirked her lips at her less-than-impressed daughter and said, “Perhaps you will use this for reasons other than shaving your legs, but no matter. Keep it clean and sharp, and you’ll never want for another.”

Thinking about her mother hurt so much that for a moment she forgot to breathe. She held the razor in its case very tightly, then placed it back into her toiletries bag.

From the floor in the hotel room, she heard Nymeria huff. The dog hated the bathroom and would restlessly pace if Arya kept the door shut after showering. In compromise, she would open the door while she finished whatever she was doing after a shower or a bath, but the dog would emit various whines or complaints. 

“Nearly done girl,” she whispered as she wiped her skin with a wet cloth, then dried herself off.

As she was wrapping a towel around herself, her short hair dripping onto her shoulders, she heard a knock at her door. Nymeria jumped up and immediately bristled, but made no other sound. 

It was someone familiar then, but not someone Nymeria particularly wanted to see. Gendry then.

Arya sighed and walked over, not bothering to look through the peep hole.

“Gendry, I’m really not in the mood just now for company. Can it wait until tomorrow---” 

She pulled open the door and stopped talking. 

Pale brown eyes, the colour of whisky in firelight. Red hair streaked with white. Loose white shirt, brown trousers, boots, and a dark leather jacket. 

She stared. She had forgotten everything she was saying. 

“Dr Stark,” her professor said in the coldest tone she had ever heard. His eyes never left hers. Never strayed below her nose, though she knew he had taken in her dishevelled state in a single glance, and was likely disgusted by her lack of decorum. His face could have been carved in marble for all the emotion he was showing. It was worse than the night of the viva, long ago, when she---

“Professor,” she said with alarm. “How did you know I was staying here?”

“Mr Waters.”

“Ah.”

A pause. She looked away, thoroughly embarrassed, while he stood very still.

“Would you, um… care to come in?” 

She cursed herself instantly the moment the words left her mouth. 

“No.”

‘Of course not,’ she thought with intense self-recrimination, looking away from him, feeling her face burn with shame. _Stupid, stupid girl. Will you ever learn?_

“This man,” he said haltingly, the cold thawing very slightly in his tone, “was hoping that perhaps a director might be hungry and would share a meal.”

She looked back with surprise. Her eyes knitted together in confusion, and she said, “Beg pardon?”

He inclined his head smoothly, but she thought she saw a twinkle of amusement just before his face smoothed into impassivity again.

“Would the director take in an evening meal with this man in the tavern below?” 

She blinked, trying to recall if she had made plans with the Brotherhood in one of the other drinking holes, but he blew her mind by saying, “It would be this man’s honour to break bread with House Stark tonight.”

She bit her lip. He was playing dirty, and they both knew it. Then her mother’s words came back to her, forming and dropping from her mouth as though they had been waiting all along for just this man, just this moment.

“The honour is mine, and the salt and the bread of my table is yours to share this night.”

Catelyn would have been pleased she had remembered them so well. 

As soon as the words left her mouth, the spell was broken. She broke eye contact, dipped her head, still dripping from her shower, and turned away very slightly. Looking down, she saw her bare toes were in a tiny puddle on the floor, and she felt very, very stupid, standing naked and damp under her fluffy hotel towel.

When she looked up, he was gone.

\--- later ---

She dressed in her plainest clothes and absolutely refused to put on any makeup. She was determined to keep her appearance as simple as possible. 

“This is strictly business,” she said to Nymeria as she tucked her feet into a pair of thick handknitted socks from her sister. Sansa had claimed they were made with machine-washable wool, and their mother had scoffed and declared that that was so much snake oil. 

Before it had all gone to hell, they had held up surprisingly well in what Arya had laughingly declared was rigorous scientific experiment. Arya had thrown hers into various machines without thinking, and the ones Sansa had knitted for their mother had been dutifully handwashed by Catelyn’s maids in the old way. In the end, Bran had never gotten to wear his out at all; that had become their sad little control sample. It sat in his chest of drawers, and the scientific experiment had been abandoned because it was just too fucking awful to contemplate anymore. 

Such were her thoughts as she rifled through the latest dig reports, went through her emails, and cross-referenced grant applications against time scales and references to chase. More science, more archaeology, more research. Nothing else mattered.

She resolutely did not check the clock. She had set her phone to alert her when it was time to head downstairs at a reasonable hour for dinner, and she would _not fucking check her clock again_.

‘Damn him anyway to the Dothraki sea,’ she thought in practiced litany, as she continued to work on the day logs, prep for the next few days of work, and other endless tasks that had piled up.

Nymeria snuffled at her leg, and she automatically reached down to rest her hand in her thick ruff. A curl of a wet tongue licked her palm. She murmured, “Good dig dog,” and Nymeria settled down again.

\--- later ---

He played with the edge of the cardboard coaster decorated with a sign for Hanged Man ale. In the other hand, he held a well-worn novel, its edges softened by use and time, reading it again as though for the first time. 

The story was a retelling of an old Braavosi tale about the Lord of Light and his doomed Lady of Winter. He could have picked apart all of the places where the author had inaccurately spun the tale from the pale fragments of ancient texts left behind and scattered across the ages. 

New pieces were occasionally re-discovered through painstaking investigations by scholars cataloguing old maester libraries that had somehow survived the endless wars of the last three thousand years. Other rare fragments were sometimes discovered in excavations in the arid plains of Essos, or otherwise turned up via political networks with wealthy Westerosi Houses whose treasuries were filled with such rare and precious objects of the ancient past. There they were just another pawn of endless power plays. No one could stop the Houses from hoarding the fragments or preventing the spread of knowledge they contained, and well they knew it. 

All of this he understood, just as he had memorised splinters of the story; it was one of the least fractured tales of the early Dawn of Days period, despite the many retellings and linguistic variations over time.

The story went that the priests of the great light, which was later translated to mean the Lord of Light, had whipped him into a fury in their desire to ease a great and unceasing winter storm that covered the land in darkness, once interpreted as the Crone of Winter, then the Lady of Ice, and eventually the Nameless One. And he had taken up his great shield and fiery sword and tread to the north in search of this great Lady of Winter to break her bones and eat of her heart. Such was his rage that his eyes rolled uncontrollably in his face and he bit the edge of his shield! His wrath threatened to tear him apart, so great was his desire to inflict his rage upon the woman who had unleashed the hellish winter that pushed cold into the heat of his body. 

For ten days and nights, he neither ate nor slept, and every step the giant Lord of Light took across the land left destruction in his passing. The frozen lands perished into ashen dust in his fire, and the people burned in lakes of molten lava. The priests moaned in their shadowy caves and burned incense and precious amber, sacrificed the finest cattle and offered the sweetest virgins, but the Lord of Light could neither smell the perfume, eat the offerings, nor had any interest in sating his burning body on the petrified flowered girls and boys strewn across his path. 

He came upon the snow-topped mountains of the north, where the Lady of Winter made her home, and though she heard his approach, she continued to dance with her snow flurries, twirling in the blizzard high above, blanketing all with gentle snowfall. The land was a vision of purest white and silver under a blanket of frozen winter. Her dark skin was a perfect reflection of the night sky, and she shook her crown of braids and frost as she danced with joy among the stars and the glimpses of the fat, curved moons. She feared nothing and wore nothing, for she was unashamed and glorious in her element. The winter animals danced in the wake of her song, and under her protective snows, the earth slept in peaceful slumber.

The Lady of Winter saw the Lord of Light approach her lands, a red beacon of rage and fire, and she was moved with compassion and pity for him. She sent the kindest and gentlest cooling mists of ice crystals to soothe his aching brow, but he screamed his defiance, calling for her to come and face his wrath. 

She twisted her hands and sang a song of peaceful slumber, dropping gentle breezes of snow flurries – her favourite kind – into his hands, to twine and play in his fingertips, an invitation to a lullaby, but he instead snarled and hurled expletives into her sky.

She sent a bountiful harvest of winter nuts and dried berries, her last attempt to placate his temper, but he flung his shield over his face, fearing a spell or a trick. The shells exploded at his feet and he screamed into the air, raising his shield and sword to his sides, crying out in his fury.

He began to chant, focusing on the words the priests had taught him. The fire built in his cock, then his intestines, into his stomach, then his lungs. He felt it coalesce into his fingertips, and when he could stand the heat no longer, he flung his fiery magic into the air, aiming for her heart. He did not know the meaning of all the words. He didn't care. He used them all, and saw with the satisfaction of a warrior that they landed well.

She had not anticipated this moment, and had no defences prepared. The heat entered from her right foot, and thence coursed quickly up her leg, into her thigh, settling for a searing moment into her hip. From there, the words travelled into her womb, her belly, then into her solar plexus. She could not stop the words! Deep into her great wide heart they wormed, and she screamed with the pain, falling into the ground below, into a snowbank, where she looked in vain for succour, for cooling, for shelter.

He grabbed her then, and without pausing to think or speak, he stabbed his fiery sword into her heart; but in that same moment, she reached up and made her hand into a spear, and thrusting it into his chest, she poured all of her ice into his heart in return, cooling his inferno at last.

For a moment, they were connected, and all of creation stopped, waiting to see what would occur.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then R’hllor the Lord of Light, R’hllor the Betrayer, R’hllor the Fire-Bringer, found he could dim his light at last. He stared into the Crone of Winter’s eyes, the Lady of Ice, the Bringer of Storms. Recognising his long-lost beloved and falling to his knees beside her, he wept her name.

And she coughed, and it was wet, wet, wet. She was melting away in his arms, and all around him, the snow was beginning to melt. As the water flowed from her lips, he heard her voice, like a babbling brook, as she said, “Ten thousand years, and you still haven’t fucking learned to stay away from the godsdamned priests.”

The contemporary Braavosi fiction was considerably more romantic, and had a much nicer ending. He could have picked out the hundreds of ways the author had prettied it up. But he deliberately chose not to. 

Life was hard enough as it was. If the original was just a typical tale about the turn of the seasons, and none of it mattered anymore in the face of science, why not just let the gods have a happy ending at last? Mortals rarely got the chance anyway.

He turned the page in his book, and reached out for his pint of ale. 

“Professor.”

He looked up and saw her standing in front of him. She took his breath away, for all the coldness in her moon-coloured eyes.

She wore an old white button-down shirt over a grey camisole and a pair of brown combat trousers with worn brown leather boots. She probably thought she looked plain, like any other university student or staff member, but the cut of her clothes emphasised every curve, while also telling him a few other things about her that perhaps she didn’t want him to know.

The clothes were finely made, but had clearly seen better days. Though she was from a wealthy House, she was either not calling upon their name to survive, or something else had happened to that resource. He glanced at her hands: rough and calloused, they spoke of hard labour in the trench, but what captured him more was the way she had bitten the nails to the quick. 

‘Stress and anxiety,’ he thought, as he took in the deep circles under her eyes and the slenderness of her frame. ‘But not atypical on one’s first directorship.’

Her dark hair was dry now, which was a pity; he had been fascinated by the thickness and texture of it as it had dripped onto her white shoulders, the fat droplets tracing down her neck, her collarbones, and the gentle curves of her breasts over which the thick white towel had been tucked.

“Dr Stark,” he said to her, inclining his head. 

Her left eyebrow rose in inquiry, but she said nothing further. She tucked her roughened hands behind her, standing at parade rest, looking for all the world like a tired soldier. 

‘She may have visited her brother again,’ he thought idly as he looked her up and down, letting his gaze roam her body without a shred of decency. He enjoyed the way her face flamed high with embarrassment and rage, and just as she opened her mouth to flay him with her tongue, he put his book down and said, “Hungry?”

Her teeth snapped shut like a wolf on the neck of its prey, and she glared at him.

He could almost read her mind, so clear were the thoughts on her open face.

_This was **your** idea. Of **course** I’m hungry. I’ve been waiting to eat for hours._

_Then let us eat._

He gestured in front of him at the empty seat. She sat down slowly, her nostrils flaring. She plucked up the menu from the table and began to peruse it as he returned to his novel, as though he had not a care in the world. And maybe he didn’t. He certainly didn’t look bothered.

‘Why am I here,’ she moaned in her mind. ‘What am I doing?’ She snuck glances over the menu at him, watching as he swallowed his ale and read from his book.

“Are you really reading the ‘Forged in Ice and Fire’ series?” she said, utterly shocked, dinner momentarily forgotten. 

He didn’t look up. He simply intoned, “Mmhm.”

She could just see a hint of a smirk on his face.

“Is there a problem?”

Her face heated. If he wanted to read bad historical smut, what was it to her? She returned to the menu and tried to concentrate, but she kept looking over at the book. She couldn’t help but notice it was well-worn, its spine cracked and faded, but the famous cover was still obvious for anyone with eyes to see.

Oberyn Martell, the infamous head of House Martell, had made a name for himself as an actor, part-time fashion model, and playboy. With his girlfriend Ellaria Sand, he had made headlines by financing and starring as R’hllor, the Lord of Light, in the film version of the 'Forged in Ice and Fire' books. And there he was, in all his darkly tanned glory, pectorals rippling in red paint no doubt meant to imitate inflamed sexual ardour, or some shit. And Ellaria Sand floated in the air behind him, trying to look ethereal as the Winter Lady, but mostly appearing a bit ridiculous in a gauzy white outfit that was trying desperately to invoke a sense of winter. 

To a Northern woman like Arya, nothing looked less like winter than yards of bare skin and see-through clothing. Winter was hard and unyielding. It meant thick fur, layers of clothing, wrappings of wool, and never exposing flesh unless you were expecting to lose it to frostbite.

“She’s supposed to be black,” she groused, unable to help herself. “Apparently they couldn’t find a single black person in Westeros to play her? Typical.”

He looked up then and said, “Oh?” As if he didn’t know.

“And she’s pregnant. I guess that wasn’t going in either. Can’t have our hero killing a pregnant black woman.”

He carefully schooled his smile. 

“What else did they get wrong, Dr Stark?”

She tossed the menu down in fury. She wasn’t sure why she was so angry, but she was suddenly absolutely shaking in rage.

“He's supposed to be black too. I’ll have the chicken.” 

And then she proceeded to tell him everything that the stupid film got wrong, and he sat in perfect contentment as he listened to her tell him everything he already knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least one more chapter. Who knows? <3


	4. B4 (cut)

After dinner, her voice dries up and she retires to her room. She’s fleeing him, and she knows it. His eyes track her over the course of their meal. He eats a steak, and she watches how the cuts in the meat give forth trickles of blood onto his plate. At one point he seems to suck the juice from a bite, defiantly vulgar in her presence. She is fascinated. The hollows in his neck move, and she is struck by the urge to lick and scrape her teeth against the ropes and tendons near his--.

 _No you do not_ , she tells herself firmly.

She hurries to finish her chicken, but he remembers a different time and place, when she might have leaned over and claimed a portion of his meal for herself. 

He tells himself that he doesn’t miss it, but the memory lingers in the shadows of his mind, and he falls into the trap of remembrance almost too willingly when she sips her pint of ale.

_///before///_

“Where were you born?” she asks, as they tuck into their dinners at the Oldtown University. 

“Why does a lovely girl ask?” he deflects. It is a favourite game of his, and she warms to it instantly.

“Why would you wish to hide it?”

“Is the present not engaging enough?”

“If the present were so fascinating, we would not investigate the past.”

He grins, and acknowledges her point. She leans over and steals a thick potato wedge, a happy and roguish smile on her face. She dips it into a little trail of salt on her plate, and he shakes his head as she pops it into her mouth. 

“If a persistent student must know, a man has the honour of being of the free city of Lorath. As she must know, given his manner of speech.”

She nods, and says, “And when did you leave?”

He leans over, and quick as a snake, steals one of her strips of fried beefsteak. Outrage colours her cheeks. 

“Hey!”

“Two questions? And one for an answer already known? Tsk.”

He says this around his prize, uncaring that his mouth fairly bulges. His teeth are pearly and straight, and he grins with careless impudence at her mock outrage.

She steals another wedge, and makes for a third when he slaps her wrist. It stings – unexpectedly quite hard.

“Oy!”

“Hands off, lovely girl,” he admonishes. 

She looks adorable, all wounded and petulant. He watches from hooded eyes, then turns abruptly away. 

“A man travelled much, from his youth,” he begins. “He began as an apprentice.” 

He turns back to watch her, and sees her tracing a forefinger in the salt on her plate. She sucks the finger into her mouth, and around it says, “Uh hm?”

Guileless, she looks with expectation at the start of his tale. Her eyes are like bright coins in the tealights, but he is transfixed by how she continues to dip her finger into the salt, her tongue wrapping around her finger, over and over.

“That is…,” he stops. Stares at her for a moment.

 _She has no idea how enticing that is_ , he thinks in the shadows of his mind.

Dip. Lick. Suck. 

Dip. Lick. Suck.

She smiles brightly, her eyes looking concerned for a moment, and she breaks the spell. 

“Cat got your tongue?”

 _Something like that_ , he thinks, and tells her of his early travels with his mentor, the kindly man who is now the Head of the Department. 

_///now///_

She watches as he arrives at the dig site again, and blows the errand strands of hair from her face. The cute little buns have been replaced by a Northern braid. She’s all business today.  


Nymeria stays close to her, whining as she picks up on the Girl’s stress. 

“Hush girl,” she says, petting her great head gently. “It’s just him. It doesn’t matter. He’ll get bored and be gone in a few days.”

But the days pass and he continues to visit. She supposes she could tell him to leave, but the students are thrilled to have him. His reputation has preceded him, and he is gracious and supportive to all. To her irritation, they are all either obviously smitten with him, or so in awe of his reputation that they are too busy sucking up to remember that _she’s_ the director, not him.

It will not do.

She roughly pulls Gendry aside at lunch on the third afternoon. 

“Gendry – need you for a meeting.”

As soon as she says it, she winces. His face is instantly happy and open, and she could kick herself.

It’s been their agreed passcode for a quickie, but it’s also a _useful phrase for an actual meeting_ , and as she walks into a large tent being used as her field office, she is unsurprised by Gendry’s swift embrace and uplift. He has her practically wrapping her legs around his waist and halfway to the ground, her arms around his neck for stability more than passion, as he growls into her neck, “I’ll meet you anytime, anywhere, m’lady.”

It’s been a little while since they’ve visited each other’s beds, but she can’t be certain the swoop in her belly isn’t just gravity as she slaps his shoulders a few times.

“Gendry!”

He kisses her senseless for a moment, and she has to give it to him – the guy isn’t a bad kisser at all.

His tongue strokes hers just the way she taught him that she likes. The pressure is exactly as hard as she prefers, and his teeth nip her lower lip just once as he growls again, happy to be in his element, with just a few slivers of clothing keeping him from his prize.

She pushes again, and he stops immediately. Reacts to her pushing by lifting back.

“What’s wrong?” His eyes, the colour of a perfect summer sky, are surprised but not angered. He is a gentleman to his core, and he instantly helps her stand up, reducing contact but not rejecting her.

“I’m sorry,” she says instantly, but he shushes her. 

“Uh, did you actually want a meeting-meeting?” he asks with a grin.  


She looks up with chagrin, and then away with a chuckle. 

“Um… yeah? Is that all right?”

His laughter fills the tent, and he says, “Yeah, ‘course! But uh… Arya, we need a better code phrase or sommat.”

She laughs nervously, then attempts to let out the tension with an awkward pat on his shoulder. He says, “Fuck that, c’mere,” and holds her close for a moment, before letting her go and finding one of the folding chairs near the edge of the tent. She tidies her hair up a bit and tries to compose herself, pretending they didn’t just nearly have sex, and telling herself that her cunt isn’t exactly throbbing, even if that’s a lie.

This is why she loves him, a bit.

But when she looks into his eyes, and sees just friendliness, almost as though she’s looking at a puppy…. 

She sighs.

“It’s about Professor H’ghar.”

“Oh yeah, he’s great! The kiddos really like him.”

She rolls her eyes. Only Gendry, who’s barely ten years older than some of these undergrads, would call them ‘kiddos’.

“Has he told you why he’s here?”

“Nope.” 

She stares into his eyes again. They’re clear and sweet like a cloudless summer day, when the fields are ripening and there isn’t a hint of winter to come in another lifetime or two. 

“You don’t think he has some kind of… I dunno. Hidden agenda?”

He snorts. 

“Like what?”

She thinks carefully about her phrasing. 

Archaeology has always been a man’s world. Women have only been allowed to attend university in the past two hundred years, and in that time, only a handful have been given any attention as serious scholars in history or archaeology. She knows she has to be careful here, as Gendry may not understand what challenges she is facing, even as a child of a noble House. She knows he’s had his own struggles as an unacknowledged bastard, but the fact he has a cock and balls has given him an unfair advantage in their shared discipline, whatever their class difference.

“This may be one of the oldest First Men sites in Westeros,” she begins. He begins to frown. He is not unaware of the significance of the location; this is why he is her site manager after all. He is a fully qualified archaeologist, and has been her second-in-command from day one.

“He has been on sabbatical in Essos for over two years, working on the First Men,” she continues, “and now as we finally start to get into the Dawn layers, he appears. You don’t think that’s a bit too much of a coincidence?”

“You sound paranoid.”

She picks up the day’s sheets and sees his name has been placed in a trench inside one of the interior rooms, and he’s working on his own.

“Did you assign him here?”

She hands it over to Gendry and he shrugs.

“Yeah, so what? He has the experience. He doesn’t need a buddy. We need to open that area, and he’s more than qualified. Brought his own gear and all.”

She doesn’t know why, but she’s seething suddenly.

“Run the rosters with me every night from now on.”

“Wait – what? Arya—”

She’s out of the tent before he can stop her, and heading over to her Professor before she can think anything other than to damn him again and again to the Dothraki sea.


	5. B5 (wall remnant)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Music played on repeat for this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N541HLPeG6Y)

Her feet flit across the site, and she’s not paying any attention to the little calls to her name. She isn’t sure when Nymeria falls to her side, but together they are a pack. Their nimble feet pick a path across the site without error, the way illuminated as clear as daylight streaming a guide through the forest of trenchlines, features, and across the boards.

She isn’t thinking. She’s feeling. This is her element, her territory. 

Every trench here is hers.

Every scratch they put into the ground is hers.

Every single scrap of dust that is scraped into a bucket is done at her command.

She climbs into the hillock, across the ditch separating the rest of the trenched area, and into the castle interior. 

She sees a flash of red. She isn’t sure if it’s her eyes or his hair. She doesn’t care.

She hears a growl. She isn’t sure if it’s her wolfdog or her throat. She doesn’t care.

Her jaw is so tight, but she walks forward, into the interior of the ruins.

He’s there. Crouched, at a perfectly laid out trench, he’s there. 

\---

Later, they will each be privately grateful to the wolfdog, who always guards her pack.

\---

“What are you doing here?” she growls. She hadn’t planned on starting this fight, but it was happening now.

Whatever is gonna happen, it’s gonna happen now, now, now, her heart is beating.

His back is so broad, and this close to lunch, in the stickiness of the swampy heat, she can see the sweat beading on the back of his neck, where his red and white hair is gathered into a tight braid.

Somewhere far away, lunch is being called. The troops are downing tools, heading off to the mess tent. 

She wants to bury her hand into his candy-striped braid, loop it into her fist, and pull it. Hard.

She licks her lips as he turns around. Watches as he stands up and looks down at her. Witnesses as he almost glowers, then shutters his face into impassivity.

Oh, how she hates that. Loves it. Hates it.

“Digging, lovely girl.”

She hasn’t been that in so long.

“Don’t call me that. I’m the Director here.”

He walks around her slowly, taking her measure. His mouth quirks at last, and he shakes his head. He picks up his water bottle, and takes a deep pull. She tries to keep her eyes on his, but fails. She’s watching his throat swallow. 

He laughs.

It’s the last straw. 

She breaks so many rules to wipe the smirk off his mouth.

She pushes him as hard as she can. He falls on his ass, right into his open trench. It’s only a few inches deep, but it’s still an open trench. It’s just not done; it’s also a massive violation of health and safety regs. 

Oh, but it’s so worth it to see his mouth fall open in shock. 

She glares at him from above, and then she shocks them both when she pounces him.

She bites his lips, and when he responds by opening them fully to her, groaning, she is terrified and elated. His tongue sweeps into her mouth, and she grips the back of his head, wrapping that braid into her fist, and it’s as soft and thick as she had imagined. She pulls hard, and she’s on her knees braced over his hips, his hands gripping her thighs. 

She should stop. She knows it. She also knows that stopping was a decision she stomped out of her body before she found him here, kneeling in the dirt – her dirt – without her permission. 

Damn Gendry anyway.

This is her territory, and he is a trespasser.

He is her territory, whispers a thought in her mind, and this is an emotion that clamps her heart in a vice. She refuses to hear more. Instead, she viciously pulls his braid further, further, further back, much too far for his comfort, and she licks hard from his exposed collarbone to his jaw. 

Salt. Sweat. Musk. Her nose fits perfectly under his jaw, like it was made to go there. She inhales deeply, and feels him swallow. The lump of his throat moves against her, and she bites gently, then sucks.

He bucks hard against her, letting her feel his erection. She releases his braid abruptly, and he finds her mouth.

Their lips are hot and open, and their hands are going everywhere.

Crossing lines into forbidden territory. 

She wants to hold him close, rake her blunted nails hard against his shoulders and back, while grinding against his hard erection. And so she does. Every touch thrills her, edges her closer to ecstasy, like a teenager at a party instead of an adult at a very public research---

She shuts her brain off, because she finally has access to his mouth, and what’s a few kisses to a grant application?

He wants to bite at her neck, to unbutton her worn shirt, to pull down the camisole and get to her breasts. To lick and suck, to see her bend back in pleasure, watch her wriggle on his lap. He cannot believe he’s allowed to do this, that she’s letting him, that this is something they can do right now.

But she’s trying so hard not to capitulate. She doesn’t want to lose, or to relent.

He pulls her head down, and she bites him in retaliation. He yelps, and she pulls his lip back without apology. When they stare at each other’s eyes at last, hers are full of anger and lust. His are full of open and confused wonder and desire.

She licks a bit of his blood from her lip, and he groans as he places his forehead against hers.

“You left me,” she says with tight fury and unshed tears.

“Yes,” he says, his voice thick.

She hits his shoulder, and her voice begins to seethe with real rage.

“How could you?” she hisses, and her hands are hitting his shoulders. He bucks up against her centre, and she moans. He is moving hard against her, his clever fingers finding buttons and zippers.

She gasps when he leads her hand to his hard length, his other hand grasping her jaw to stare into his eyes. There’s a question there, a line and a pleading. He wants her. She can feel him leaking over her thumb. 

“How could you?” she moans.

She squeezes him cruelly, and his eyes almost cross with the pain and pleasure. She hisses with viciousness.

“Are you going to leave me again?” she rasps.

He pulses in her hand, and he kisses her so hard, it takes her a moment to separate the teeth from the tongue. He pushes back, fishes a condom out of one of his many pockets, and she’s grateful. She’s been on birth control for so long that children definitely aren’t an issue. He knows this might have killed the mood a bit, but he sits patiently, holding himself out to her, his hands spread against the dirt of thousands of years below them. 

She is on him and riding before he finishes his words, and his hands come over her ass to pull her harder over him. Before she can think of anything further, it’s just the delicious, forbidden ache of Jaqen, thick and hard inside of her at last.

He’s hitting the very back of her, and her moans switch from pleasure to a yelp of surprised pain. He grunts and doesn’t relent, only swirls his hips over to one side, then to another, trying to find a spot, a rhythm, a place or feeling inside of her that will somehow give him more space to stuff himself further. She grits her teeth.

Gods, she thinks, he’s thicker than Gendry, and he’s punching my cervix like a goddamned boxer.

She is wriggling around, and the sensations of tight heat around his cock and desperate scrabbling on his chest are driving him mad. He pulls at her hips, her ass, trying to get her closer to his chest, desperate for her tongue in his mouth, for her taste, the smell of her to overwhelm him. He finds himself wishing her hair was cascading down. It’s currently in those adorable little buns on the sides of her head, and he’s tempted to grab them, but he’s pretty sure she’ll kill him if he tries. He just wants to smell and taste and take all of her. 

The need drives him to buck up hard inside of her just as she sits up a bit, and he’s watching through slitted eyes as her mouth drops open.

There, he thinks in a haze. Right there.

He fucks his hips up into her again, again, and once more.

She mewls and reaches forward onto his chest, embarrassed and trying to hide her reaction.

He shakes his head and offers both of his hands, lifting her back up. Though locked together, they might look fully dressed to anyone who might be walking past, but his dick is hard inside of her, and she’s curled herself back just enough that he’s hitting her just right. He helps her balance, palm to palm, fingers curled over like lovers, and then he’s bouncing her on his cock, right on that spot.

She is bright red, but they don’t take their eyes off each other’s faces.

Her hips start rolling, and his hips are fucking just how she needs it, and as she begins to huff, he leads her hands together, letting them stabilize on just one of his hands, relying on just one strong arm. Her arms are unsteady, but he remains rock steady, fucking away like a machine under her, slow and relentless like the tide.

The other he licks and sneaks down into her utility trousers, so like his own, full of treasures and secrets. He finds her clit, wet and begging for attention.

He watches, moving and watching for her reactions. He so loves to watch her. From the years as his student, to watching her covertly through the ruins of this site, he has been a voyeur for this woman for so long, he cannot remember a time when he didn’t want to watch her face. She fascinated him, and he cannot drink from her well enough to satisfy.

When she begins to curl over, her movements becoming erratic, he doesn’t let up, not for a second, seeking to draw out her enjoyment. When she tries to look away, he chases her gaze, not letting her hide.

“Come,” he commands, almost her teacher again, as her body begins to stutter over his, and she lets out the smallest of cries into the air. 

Immediately, he kisses her, taking the cry into his body, wanting to capture it and savour it. 

As her body begins to become loose-limbed, her grey-eyes re-focusing, he shakes his head, and gently pushes her upwards. He lifts her, and blessing her petite size, he pushes her gently onto her back. Taking his jacket nearby, he puts it under her ass, giving her a cushion from the trench surface below. 

She reaches out and scratches into the dirt as he thrusts back into her, his rhythm slow and certain.

“You don’t have to,” she starts to say. She’s trying to tell him that she usually only climaxes once, and that one was amazing, so she’s really not expecting anything else. 

He looks down at her and simply shakes his head, wondering at her previous lovers. He reaches down and gently opens her shirt. He stops when he finds a simple leather cord necklace lying between her breasts, from which hangs an iron coin.

“Gods, Arya,” he says thickly. She tries to look away, but he doesn’t let her. He leans down and kisses her heart, where the coin lays. Then he lifts her legs higher, and staring into her eyes, says, “Again.”

“I can’t.”

He is relentless, watching her and moving exactly as she needs. Every subtle change, he follows like a hound on a trail. If she whispers, he hears. He bites at her neck, licks at her mouth, her neck, her breasts. He pulls out and finger-fucks her to the edge. When she is trembling and on the precipice of screaming, he pushes himself back in, and says, “Come on this cock.”

Her legs are shaking so hard, she cannot keep them around his waist any longer without his help. But it’s her mind that is terrified.

“I can’t,” she whispers, so afraid to fall any further for this man.

“A lovely girl can,” he whispers fiercely into her ear, as he thrusts and pinches her clit, raising her pleasure ever higher. “You were made to come on my cock.”

She blows apart, and he with her, with his mouth sealed upon hers, their legs tightly entwined, their bodies wrecking for each other. Somewhere in her mind, she’s wailing. In his, he is screaming. 

In retaliation, as soon as he releases, she reaches up and grabs his hair again and latches her teeth onto his neck.

It is an unspoken threat, a promise, and a vow.

He holds her head to his neck, stroking her gently. He has found that he doesn’t mind her teeth in his throat at all.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of the real plot, at least for now. :) Last chapter is an epilogue, and only because I'm a sucker for Nymeria. 
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed my little archaeologists. On a real site, you definitely would not try to get away with these shenanigans... but I'm not saying it's never, ever happened. ;)


	6. B6 (cut)

She keeps her ears perked forward, standing guard to the strange place where the Red and White Man and the Girl have made their den. 

She is pleased that the Red and White Man prepared a place for the Girl. And he has chosen well, she thinks in approval. 

It is away from all the noisy others, and there is more shelter in the walls that surround them. She thinks it is like a cave. She can guard them while they mate at last, and this thought pleases her the most.

She is not interested in watching, but the thought of the Girl being mated properly makes her squirmy with joy. But she keeps a careful ear notched in case the Girl becomes unhappy. 

She will not tolerate the Red and White Man making the Girl make the horrible pained sounds again.

She will bite him, and hold him down like a stupid pup, if he tries.

She will take him by his ruff, and shake him hard, until he understands that he is pack, and there is nowhere better to be than with the Girl and the magnificent Nymeria. She will shake and shake until he is limp like a naughty pup, and then the Girl will make him understand how things should be. 

Like _training_ , thinks Nymeria, but then she shakes her great head, because she doesn’t really like _training_ , unless the rewards are very, very tasty indeed.

She doesn’t want to be _trained_ , she thinks, she wants to be _free_ , like the Red and White Man, and like the Girl, when the Girl lets herself truly be herself. 

The thoughts are becoming confusing and it all makes her growl, and it is at this moment that she sees movement near the bottom of the hill.

Someone approaches? 

Unacceptable. 

This is pack land now, and there is nothing more important than the sounds behind her, which are building in sighs and grunts. Good sounds, like the Girl is finally being mounted properly. Maybe even tied. 

Perhaps Man pups will come!

There must be no interruptions!

Nymeria slinks down the hill, her ruff lifting, and a growl sounding deep in her throat. She shows her teeth, a warning to the interloper. This is not the time for play. This is serious pack business! Leave!

“Nymeria?” calls the Bull Boy. “Oh good, it’s you—”

She cuts him off with a snarl, and lets out a snipe towards his hand when he approaches to pet her. Can he not see her sharp teeth, and the splendid way that they shine in the sun? She will bite him if he comes close. Leave!

“Ooooh…kay, girl. I’ll just, come back later.”

She nips at his heels when he is not fast enough for her liking.

His yip is satisfying. She will remember that when she sees him again.

She bounds happily back up the hill, sniffing the grass to ensure he has not dropped anything. She picks up a delicious smell on the breeze. Is it? Could it be?

She pauses, a paw lifted. 

She must investigate. Risking their ire, she comes closer to the new den. She sees the Girl and the Red and White Man. She is pleased that he is mounting her properly, from behind, the way that she knows is best. She does not know it for herself, but she instinctively approves. She is not too sure about why the Girl is sitting up in his long arms, her back to his front, but as long as the Girl is happy and tied, it is enough for Nymeria. It doesn’t look _quite_ right to her, but the Girl and the Red and White Man are moving together, and the smell in the air is of joyous mating. Maybe it is a Man thing.

It is a good match. The pack will be strong again.

But Nymeria is not here to watch. She’s hunting.

She snuffles around, hoping not to be seen or heard. 

Not there…not there….ah! 

She sticks her great beautiful face into the Red and White Man’s bag, and though she hears him shout her name, he is too late! She has found the source, the stash, the kill!

She is bounding out of the den before the Girl or the Red and White Man can stop her, a fierce grin on her snout and the prize locked in her jaw. 

\---

“Let her go,” says Arya, pulling his mouth back to hers, licking it again, drawing him into another hard grind. “She’s won this round.”

“A man cured that venison himself. The beast will be smug for days,” he grumbles, but he bites into the back of her neck, and there are no more words. Only caresses and half-hitched moans, and the sweetness of oblivion in each other’s arms.

\---

The _good smelly dried food thing_ is the best of all, thinks Nymeria. She sticks her great beautiful face into the paper bag and flicks it over her head. She spends the rest of the afternoon chasing the smell all over the hill, keeping her pack safe, and licking her chops in satisfaction.

Yes, truly it is the best, she thinks, as she basks in the swampy sunshine, listening to the sound of a contented pack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Below this cut (B6) is the layer we'd call 'the natural', ie, the layer at which there is no more archaeology. 
> 
> End of stratigraphy - at least for now.


End file.
